


hey asshole, see the sun is shining (but you are not smiling)

by ProjectFYERBIRD



Category: DC Extended Universe, Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Metahumans, Nonbinary Character, Original Character-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 03:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18541129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProjectFYERBIRD/pseuds/ProjectFYERBIRD
Summary: doom manor gets a new resident.





	1. prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> niles brings another guest to stay at doom manor. there's a brief adjustment period of adjustment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer that i was drunk when i wrote most of the prologue's first part. the fic title is taken from 'hey asshole' by watsky. part one's title is inspired by 'lovecraft in brooklyn' by the mountain goats, part two's is a line from 'snow and dirty rain' by richard siken, and part three's is ripped directly from 'dog days are over' by florence + the machine.
> 
> [warnings: body horror, misgendering of a nonbinary character (not with malicious intent, they're not out yet)]

i. part one—lovecraft in cloverton, ohio

 

It was not on a dark and stormy night that Niles Caulder brought in Doom Manor's latest resident. (How horribly cliche that would be.) While it was night, quiet with the only sound coming from whatever nocturnal creatures roosted in the trees on the manor's property and the chirping of unseen crickets in the grass, it was currently the tail end of June's burgeoning summer heat, the night air soupy with humidity. A battered old truck rolled up the driveway, coming to a stop just shy of a short school bus, gravel crunching under its tires. A figure very much not dressed for the weather, hiding under a grey hoodie and baggy jeans, shuffled out of the passengers seat. Almost immediately the area fell silent, and the night sounds were replaced by footsteps on the driveway and the sound of the truck door's opening and closing. A few minutes later, and a motorized wheelchair was puttering up a ramp, the figure following close behind, hunched shoulders lopsided and walking with a pronounced limp. 

When the door to the manor slid shut with a strange, foreboding sense of finality accompanying it, the figure finally let out a sigh of relief. "You can take that hood off now, Frank," said Niles, softly, quietly, because it was very late at night (or very early in the morning–whatever you called the period of time after midnight but before the dawn), and everyone else in the manor was asleep. "It's safe here. You're among friends." 

A quiet hesitation, spanning a hair's breadth, before they swept the hood back where it hung, almost like an albatross, around their neck. Their face, though half-hidden in shadow, was thrust out into the open. Multiple eyes, bulging, sulfuric yellow with no sclera and slit pupils, creeped back from where a single eye should have been, curling around to the side of their head, partially hidden by their long, thick hair. Part of their lips down turned into a grimace, or a snarl, the skin of their left cheek split open and lined with tiny black scales, exposing row upon row of needle-sharp fangs. Under the hoodie was the same story of an arm twisted into something inhuman, inky scales crawling across their shoulder, wrapped around something that ended in five claws like meat hooks. A scaled leg hidden beneath a pair of baggy jeans, strangely proportioned like something draconian in nature, that ended in a foot that left three-toed footprints in the gravel because they had been unable to squeeze it into a pair of boots. Niles remained unfazed, even as they shrunk back slightly, falling back another half-step. Despite their careful steps, their claws still clicked against the hardwood flooring.  

He came to a stop, and gestured to the open door. Beyond it was a spartan room, containing a dresser, a floor mirror that looked decades older than them, and a twin size bed tucked into the corner. The walls were painted a deep, forest green, and the moulding was a dark brown wood–maybe chestnut? "And this will be your bedroom for however long you choose to stay," he said, smiling kindly. "I'll have your things brought up in the morning. We can decorate your room however you like when you decide if you're going to be staying or not." 

Frank nodded, and slipped inside the bedroom, bum leg dragging behind them. Before they shut the door, they peaked their head out, leaning heavily on the doorframe. "Thank you," they said quietly, the words slightly misshapen and slurred as they left their razor-lined mouth. 

"You can come out and meet everyone else whenever you feel you are ready to," he said. 

They didn't leave their room for seven days. 

On the morning of the first day, after breakfast had been eaten and the dishes then cleared away, Niles met everyone in the living room. "It's about high time I told you what required my presence so urgently," he announced. Whatever remained of the fog of sleep was immediately dispelled by his words, waved away to be replaced with curiosity. While none of them had exactly asked  _why_ he had left so suddenly, they had all wondered, and in his absence had created a small betting pool of their own personal theories–barring Rita, who had refused to take part in their 'infantile' gambling, and quite frankly did not care for the conspiracy theories surrounding whatever business he had left to take care of. Larry had said it was just plain old Chief business and put a twenty on that, Cliff had fifty that he was bringing in someone new to stay with them, and Jane bet thirty that he was visiting his second, secret family that he didn't tell them about. "We've been joined by a new guest," he said, and Cliff cheered, while the other two let out simultaneous groans and banged their heads on the backs of their chairs.

"I  _called_ it!" Cliff said. "Come on, pony up."

"Fuck me," Jane muttered under her breath, shoving her hand in her pocket. 

Larry just sighed and forked over the money without a word. 

Cliff earned not only fifty more dollars than he had when he woke up, but also two disproving glares from Rita and Niles. "Shameful," Rita said. Jane made a face at her.

"If you're quite done," he continued, "Frank hasn't decided how long she'll be with us, but I hope you four treat her with respect for however long she stays." They all nodded. It might take some getting used to, having another person around the house, but she'd fit right in without a doubt. The people Niles brought to the manor always did. "And Cliff," the robot in question looked up at the mention of his name, "you can get her things out of the truck. She's staying two doors down from you." 

"Shit." 

Having two different bags hanging from his shoulders and a suitcase rolling behind him was familiar in a painful sort of way to Cliff. It reminded him of always ending up lugging around Clara's things wherever they went. There was a phantom squeeze in his chest, where his heart would have been, and he shrugged it off with the ease that was only earned through thirty years of practice. Old pain, old memories. He set the bags down in a pile by the door, and knocked on the door. No one came. He strained whatever the hell allowed him to hear, and heard nothing. No footsteps, no shuffling. Nothing. "Uhh, Frank? It's Cliff. We haven't met, but I'm one of the others who lives here. I got your things if you want 'em." Still nothing. He would have frowned if he was able to, but left them to whatever it was they were doing in there. When he walked by later that night, the bags and suitcase were gone. 

They didn't come out on the second day. Or the third. Larry noted food had gone missing from the fridge, and there were dishes on the drying rack that hadn't been there the previous night. 

"Wasn't there more food in the fridge last night?" He asked, peering into the fridge. 

"It wasn't me," Rita said primly, straightening her skirt. 

"I never said it was," he replied, still rifling in the fridge for the ingredients to make a sandwich. "I think it's the new person Chief talked to us about." 

She paused, pursing her lips. "Well," she said after a moment, with an uneasy smile. "At least we know she's eating." 

Blood started dripping from the walls on the fourth day, at exactly twelve in the afternoon. Rita had been sitting in front of the television watching one of her pictures, mouthing along with her character's lines as she knitted something blue and white, when it happened. Too absorbed in the rhythmic, methodical click-clack of the needles against each other, she only noticed when there was the sound of a door slamming on the upper level, footsteps stomping down the stairs, and Jane yelling, "Why the _fuck_ is there blood coming out of the walls?" Rita looked up, and saw the wall ahead of her was leaking blood as if a gash had opened up from where it met the ceiling. She abandoned her knitting. Not a minute later, Larry meandered into the living room, tenderly cradling a potted orchid–judging by the smudges of dirt on his bandages and grass stains on his knees, he must have been outside in the garden. "The statues are crying blood," he said.

Cliff came in after him, and stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh god please tell me that's ketchup." 

"It's fucking blood, Cliff," Jane said as she breezed in. Her fingertips were red with it. Evidently she'd checked out for herself. "CHIEF!" She yelled, at the top of her lungs. "CHIEF!"

In the time it took for Niles to come up from his basement lab, the blood seeping out of the wall reached the floor, and pooled there, most likely soaking into the hardwood. "Oh," he said. "Oh no." 

"So you know what the fuck this is then?" Jane asked, arms crossed and fingers tapping on her biceps. 

"There's nothing to worry about," he reassured them, backing out of the room. "It's just our guest. I think she may be suffering from a nightmare." 

"At three in the afternoon?" 

Niles didn't answer, either genuinely not hearing the exasperated question, or just pretending to. 

They ended up having to clean up the blood. It took hours of deep scrubbing to get the stains out. 

On the fifth night, Cliff stayed out in the living room with the goal of catching a glimpse of the new person, and resident midnight snacker. The rest of team, sans Jane, who said she didn't care, expressed their clear disapproval of his plan, citing that they would come out when they were ready, and really Cliff, you of all people should be more sympathetic, after spending thirty years in your own room. He made it until two thirty in the morning, where he heard what sounded like claws skittering across the floor. "Oh fuck this," he said, rising from the living room couch and going back to his room. "No. Nope. Absolutely the fuck not." No food had disappeared and no dishes were on the rack that morning. Feeling guilty, Cliff left a plate outside their door that morning, hoping to ply them with the promise the food they missed out on. Gently rapping his knuckles on the door, he spoke. "Hey Frank, it's me Cliff again. Sorry about crashing your snack run. I snatched you some food from breakfast if you want." He set it down gently, and left down the hall. A door's hinges creaked as it was opened, a metallic whine of metal that had gone unoiled for so long, and then there was the click of it being shut. He felt like smiling. He left another for lunch, and another after dinner. All of them were replaced back into the hall, practically scraped clean. He did that the next day, and the next, and the day after that one, too.

It continued like that for three more days and nights, with Cliff leaving plates outside their door like he was trying to coax out a feral cat, with food still disappearing from the fridge and dishes showing up clean on the drying rack, until Rita overhead a conversation just as the seventh night crawled into the eighth morning, She'd been unable to sleep, trying to convince one of her legs to be a leg again before she settled down, when she heard it. The motorized whine of Niles' wheelchair and the sound of uneven footsteps. Only feeling slightly ashamed of herself, she limped from the bed and hovered near the door, straining her ears to hear whatever she could. "You know you have to meet them at some point, if you're going to be living with them." She heard Niles' voice, soft but still audible. The answering reply was muffled, and she just barely caught it. 

"Chief, man, I get that but like, look at me. I look like some silly putty nightmare Lovecraft dreamed up. I'm not meeting people like this. Just–one more night and I swear I'll have myself put back together." Silly putty nightmare? Put back together?

The conversation was already moving out of hearing range, fading out and being swallowed by the distance. "Take your time, but also be aware . . ." She limped back to bed with new and old questions swirling around her mind. She wondered if maybe, just maybe, Frank had a problem similar to her own . . . affliction. 

On the eighth morning, Rita came down for breakfast and found a bleary, half-awake teenager sitting at the table and drinking juice from a wine glass while they scrolled through their phone.

They were dressed in soft-looking plaid pajama bottoms with an accompanying flannel, and couldn't have been older than seventeen. She stopped in the entrance way to the kitchen, hovering there uncertainly. Two thoughts swirled around her mind, chasing each other in an endless loop. This _was the person who had caused the walls to bleed, the garden statues to cry blood, and sent Cliff running to his room?_ And then the vague anxiety of not wanting to scare them off. Taking a deep breath, she put on a wide, welcoming smile and swept into the room, slightly bitter she couldn't give them a better first impression than herself first thing in the morning, but mostly grateful she was keeping it all together."Oh!" She greeted brightly, "You must be the guest Chief was talking about. Good morning!" 

Frank looked up suddenly, as if startled, eyes wide. She saw that one of them, the left one, was bloodshot, and there was bags under both. They blinked at her owlishly before quietly saying: "Hi." Their hair, which was thick, dark brown, and buzzed down into an undercut, stuck up at odd angles. "'M Frank. Or Frankie," they introduced, unaware that Niles had already told them all their name. 

"Rita," she said. "Rita Farr." Unsurprisingly, the name didn't seem to ring any of Frank's bells, not like it had done with Larry when he'd first arrived, and even Cliff, who said that his mom had loved her films and had often roped him into watching them with her. The younger generation, she tutted to herself internally, so unappreciative of classic cinema. "I'm sure you'll meet the others soon enough, but I'm afraid we're the only ones awake at the moment."

"That's'okay," they said, words slurring together as they spoke through a yawn, covering their mouth with their fist. "I don't think I could handle meeting everyone at once." Their face scrunched up like the mere thought was an unpleasant experience before they rose from their chair. They disappeared into the kitchen to help themself to something to eat, no doubt starving after spending the past week with just one meal of leftovers a night. "If you're willing to wait a bit until Larry wakes up, he'll be happy to make an extra helping of waffles for you," she said when they came back with a bowl of cereal in hand. Something in their expression brightened at that, and they perked up from the tired slouch their posture had occupied since Rita had come down. 

Taking the spoon from their mouth, they smiled. It was small, and a bit timid, but it seemed genuine. "Hell yeah," they said. 

Larry came down soon after, already dressed in his turtle neck and green coat. Much like Rita did, he stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Frank sitting at the table, already halfway through their cereal. Noticing another person in the room, they swallowed down the spoonful they had just shoved in their mouth, and gave a shy wave. Both of them noticed how their eyes lingered on the bandages wrapped around him head to toe, but their curious gaze only lasted for a couple seconds before they averted their eyes in courtesy. They didn't seem to shocked at his appearance, which was a relief to Larry. (He reminded himself that the kid was here for a reason, and that they had made statues cry blood because of a nightmare. Of course they wouldn't be fazed by a man who dressed like a mummy.) 

"I'm guessing you're Larry," they said, pointing at him with the spoon. 

"And you must be Frank," he said, and reached over the table to shake their hand. They had a good, firm grip. "How'd you know?"

"Rita told me you were gonna make waffles." 

"Am I, now?" He countered playfully, turning to face Rita. He soon realised his error when their expression changed, suddenly contrite. 

"You don't have to if you don't want to!" Frank said apologetically. "Sorry for assuming," they ducked their head sheepishly. 

"That was supposed to be a joke." He shook his head. "These bandages kill all humour, I swear." Rita had to look away, unable to handle the secondhand embarrassment. 

"Oh! Oh, shit!" They didn't seem to even notice that they had sworn. They dropped their face into their hands, peaking at him through a gap in their fingers and speaking past their palm. "Well," they sighed, "at least we're all embarrassed. Solidarity among the socially challenged." 

Larry smiled–not that they'd be able to see it–and gave a one finger salute. He turned and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. A few minutes later he poked his head out and asked for Rita's help. Both of them knew he didn't really need any, but Frank had no idea of knowing that, and they needed to talk. She nodded and excused herself, slipping through the double doors to the well stocked and furnished kitchen beyond. She leaned against the center island, and gave him a look. "What's this about?" 

He busied himself with making the waffle batter, head down. "You know." 

"So, Frank, then."

"Rita, she's so . . . young. And–"

Frank was torn from their eavesdropping by the sound of heavy, mechanical footsteps. Something was familiar about them, but they couldn't place it. They looked up and locked eyes with Cliff as he entered, where he mimicked a large, robotic deer in headlights. They gave him a lazy peace sign just as he spoke. "Oh shit!" He said. "You're out!" They blinked as the recognition dawned on them, and they gesticulated wildly. 

"You!" They said. 

"Me?" He asked.

"You! You were the one leaving me food!" 

"Oh. Oh! Yeah, that was me!"

They smiled, shoving aside their now empty bowl in favour of talking to Cliff. "Thanks for that man, seriously." 

"No problem, kid," he said. "Wait, is it okay to call you that?"

"Pardon?"

"I asked if it was okay to–"

"Oh, yeah no don't worry about it it's fine."

He looked around. "Hey," he asked, "have you seen Rita or Larry? They're usually up by now." 

They jerked their head in the direction of the kitchen doors, pointing with their thumb. "They're in the kitchen. Talking about me."

All Cliff could hear coming from the kitchen was the muffled sounds of breakfast being made, and indistinct words underneath all that. "You can hear that?"

Frank shot him a quizzical look. "Can't you?" They asked. 

He shook his head, and the sound his neck made as it moved was almost akin to rusty hinges, the squealing of metal against metal. They tilted their head as they regarded him for a moment, their gaze almost shockingly solemn for a fifteen-year-old, before simply shrugging and sitting back. Cliff wondered how they were so easily able to shrug off revelations that they were  _different_ than the others around them, even in small ways. He thought that fitting in to a T was what kids these days were into. 

_(maybe it's because they're so young, or maybe because they're used to be different, the odd one out. cliff isn't one to assume, but between the undercut, and the name–he knew a lesbian named frank, back in the day, who was butch as fuck–he wondered.)_

They opened their mouth like they were going to say something else but then the doors opened, and out came Larry, carrying along with him the best thing Frank had ever smelled, plates of fresh waffles, and Rita trailing behind him. Cut off by the arrival of food, they put a finger to their lips and struggled to contain a laugh when Cliff drew two fingers across his mouth. Their lips wobbled when Rita set a plate down in front of them. "I see you've met Cliff," she said, and they bobbed their head in a nod. 

The breakfast conversation was mostly carried by Frank, who had slowly but surely wound down as time went by, relaxing into their seat and enjoying being the center of attention. Between bites of waffles dressed in icing sugar and strawberry, they answered questions about themself like old they were (15, turning 16 in August), where they were from (Canada–to which Cliff had exclaimed he  _knew_ it, and that they had an accent, which derailed the conversation for ten minutes as they talked about what it was like in Canada), and their favourite hobbies (listening to music, going on hikes, reading, and writing). They also gave Rita a run for her money on how much they were putting away, with no signs of stopping. Larry mentally reminded himself to make more than he usually did for dinner, if they were going to have another person with an appetite to match Rita's staying with them.  

Even with the new addition, breakfast carried on as it usually did. Jane dragged herself down to join them halfway through, grunting an introduction to Frank before digging into her own, if slightly colder, waffles. Niles came in not long after, and if he raised his eyebrows at the change in their hairstyle

_(flashblack six hours and it is two in the morning, and frank is sitting on the counter of a bathroom, a pair of pilfered hair clippers in hand, carefully buzzing away the evidence that they ever had long hair. the eyes bulging out of their scalp have finally disappeared, leaving them free to do what they'd been itching to ever since they spied the clippers in the drawer during a bathroom run two nights ago, because it really is easier to have a minor, very much deserved breakdown and chop off all your hair when you don't have to cut around the eyes growing out of your head.)_

then Frank pretended not to notice it, too preoccupied to gesturing with their fork as they talked with the others. 

It was starting off to be a good day. 

* * *

ii. part two—we are all going forward. none of us are going back

 

It took two and a half weeks for everyone to learn why exactly Frank was staying with them. Two and a half weeks of Frank trying to settle in, subtly cringing every time a man in their vicinity raised their voice. Two and a half weeks of disappearing into the basement with Niles to answer questions and run tests for hours upon hours, and carefully skirting around the topic of why Niles had even brought them to Doom Manor in the first place.

A week in, and Cliff swore up and down that he had seen the skin of their left cheek shiver and a bright yellow eye grow out of it, blink once, before it shuddered again and disappear, but that was it. Leading up to The Incident, there were no more occurrences like the ones that had transpired the first week they had stayed. By then, they had all settled into a comfortable routine as it grew more and more apparent that their guest might be becoming a more permanent resident. Frank joined them on movie nights, sitting on the floor in front of Cliff and even earning their own bowl of popcorn like Rita did because, as it turned out, they had finally found someone who could eat more than her. A joke was cracked, by Cliff, about the bottomless pit their stomach had to have been,

_(and frank laughs, and the void in their stomach laughs, and they dig their nails into their palms so the scales bubbling up across their abdomen slide back under their skin.)_

unknowing of how spot-on he really was. They also wormed their way into Cliff and Larry's personal time, taking up a genuine interest in their respective hobbies during their free time. They'd always wanted to garden, they'd confided in Larry one sunny afternoon after helping him re-pot a collection of orange flowers they'd forgotten the name of but were very pretty, but their father had never let them near the tools. The same story followed their interest in cars and mechanics, to which Cliff had loudly exclaimed without hesitation that their father had been full of shit, and they laughed so hard that they'd had to lean against his arm for support. So, they had settled in somewhat, learning some of their team's quirks as the team learned Frank's. 

But then the yelling had started in the basement, the angry kind of teenage yelling that involved voice cracks, and Frank had come storming up from the lab, Niles hot on their heels. 

They stomped through the halls, footfalls heavy despite the fact that they only wore socks around the house, before whirling around on him and jabbing a forceful finger in his direction. "You do  _not_ get to decide that for me!" They screamed. The air around them began to shimmer then, like the horizon on a hot summer day, and no matter how hard he tried, Niles couldn't look directly at them, his gaze always landing just a little bit to the right or left. "That's my fucking decision to make! Mine!" The lights flickered violently. They weren't aware of what was going on until their skin started to crawl with a nauseatingly familiar sensation, pain already lancing through their jaw as teeth began to split apart the skin of their cheek. Blood spilled from their mouth as their teeth were pushed out by rows and rows of fangs growing straight out of their hard palate. Their (rather royally) pissed off expression slipped from their face just as slit-pupiled eyes opened and blinked all across the left side of their face, rapidly turning into one of abject terror. "Shit!" They swore. 

( _oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god.)_

Panic choked them, wrapping its fingers around their throat and filling their lungs until they couldn't draw in the breaths they need–or maybe that was because their lungs had already dissolved in their chest. Instinct told them to run, to get outside, to escape–anything. They bolted for the front door. 

They didn't make it. 

The seething uproar of their body sent them toppling to the hard, unforgiving floor just shy of the living room entrance, the impact rattling all the newly formed teeth in their lengthening jaw. They rolled into it, and not a moment too soon. 

Almost as soon as they did so, the house shuddered on its foundations, the walls heaving groans of protest as something huge pressed against them, straining support beams. Plaster fell in a rain of dust from the ceiling as cracks spread through it. There were sounds of splintering wood from inside the room. A mass of void black scales layered over knots of muscle took over half of the available space to enter to the room, leaving Niles unable to squeeze by them. "Frank," he said lowly, aiming for soothing, "Frank you must calm down. Do not let this control you." 

A rattling hiss filled the air then, like an entire nest of torqued up snakes had taken up residence in the room. The walls groaned in warning again. Niles wisely stopped talking and retreated to the end of the hall, where the others had gathered. 

Hammerhead was the first to confront Niles when he reached them, wound up like a spring. "What the  _fuck_ was that?" They demanded, their voice harsh and brittle as always. 

"It seems that Frank has had an outburst," he explained calmly, "and is currently occupying our living room until she calms down enough to turn back." 

"Turn back? From what?" Cliff hovered somewhere near Hammerhead but also a safe distance away, out of punching range. "Is she okay?" 

"She'll be fine–" 

"So she's not fine right now." Stubborn, insistent. 

"I wouldn't recommend disturbing her at this moment in time, Cliff," cautioned Niles. 

"Yeah, fuck that noise," he said, brushing past him. "Frank's upset, and they need help." He turned to Larry for back-up. "You comin' or what?" 

"Larry," hissed Rita in a frantic breath. " _Larry._ "

Larry hesitated for just a moment before starting down the hall as well. Niles followed after them. Or, he tried to, at least, because the moment his wheelchair moved a foot towards them, Frank's hissing ratcheted up a notch until they were growling with enough force that the picture frames on the walls rattled and shook. The trio stopped in their tracks. "Chief, I'm gonna need you to back it up," said Cliff.

He did so, returning to the end of the hall with Hammerhead and Rita. "Be  _careful_ ," he pressed. 

Cliff didn't respond, preoccupied with squeezing himself past the scaly bulk blocking half the doorway. "Holy shit," he said when he got through. 

There was barely any space to stand, because most of it was taken up by a nightmare cloaked in black scales and deep shadows, which he assumed was Frank. A long, sinewy body was pressing against the walls and straining against the enclosed space, too many limbs awkwardly folded under their massive form in ways that couldn't have been comfortable. Multitudes of eyes dotted their hide like sulfur yellow stars, bony eyelids closing with muted click-click-clicks as they blinked at him, pupils that were almost just thin lines following his every move. He stepped over a massive onyx claw as he slowly inched his way around a thigh acting as a wall between him and Frank's head. A tinny metallic knocking coming from behind him alerted him to Larry's presence, having pushed through the gap without nearly as much trouble as Cliff had had. The two men were pressed uncomfortably close to each other until they rounded around the bend a stray limb had formed, and came out at the center of the tangled mass of scale and claw. 

Frank's head was lying on the ground on a bed of splintered furniture next to the pristine TV, whose only damage came in the form of a light coating of plaster dust. Their head was V-shaped, with a long snout and too many wide eyes staring back at him. Their hackles were raised, their lips pulled back in a soundless snarl to expose rows of ivory teeth and pink gums. "Uhhh hey there, Frank," Cliff said slowly. "You okay there kid?" His winced–or, he would have–at his voice. Rough, grating, metallic; nothing like the soothing tone he had been aiming for. But the hissing had stopped, at least, and their lips were no longer pulled into a grimace. 

All of their eyes blinked in unison, and their pupils dilated from thin lines to narrow ovals. They dragged their head across the ground, back and forth. 

Something in Cliff's chest squeezed, a phantom pain left over from when there was something in there that could be squeezed. "That's–that's fine. We're here to make you feel better. And Larry's here too!" He stepped aside in what little room the center of Frank's ball of misery provided, the leg of what used to be the couch crunching under his foot as Larry shuffled forwards. 

"Oh, Frank . . ." he sighed when he got a look at them. 

They let out a hiss of breath, closing their eyes and moving their head so that their cheek rested on the carpet. 

Cliff heaved a sigh that sounded like the rattling of bolts in a can and crossed the slight distance between him and them, lowering himself to the ground with his legs stretched out in front of him. Larry stood there, a bit awkwardly, arms hanging by his sides like dead weights, unsure of what to do, what to say. What words of comfort does one offer another when someone's freaked out so bad they've turned into a creature the size of a room? This wasn't like him. He didn't know what he was doing there, or why 

_(he's there because he cares, he cares about the kid who talks a mile a minute about everything under the sun but always pays attention when he talks at length about his plants and the care of them, he cares a little bit too much for his comfort but it's too late to do anything about that now.)_

he had followed Cliff into the living room into the first place. 

Cliff had left them however space could be afforded, but even as he watched, three of their five?–eight?–a dozen?–eyes opened and peered at him, before they suddenly picked their head up off the ground and dropped it in the robot's lap with a dull clang of carbon steel rebounding against impenetrable scales. Larry sighed again, dropping his shoulders, and moved to sit on the other side of them, so that their head was sandwiched between him and Cliff. His–expensive–coat was going to get ruined with all the plaster dust on the ground, but he found that he didn't mind all that much.

"Can I touch you? Do you mind?" Asked Cliff, his big hands hovering unsuredly above them, ready to reach out or pull back. 

" _Yesssss peassse_ ," they spoke, voice strange and distorted and drawing out their ess sounds like a snake in a cartoon would. When they spoke, their jaws opened up and their tongues–tongues, as in plural–formed around the words clumsily, like their voice was coming from organs that weren't their lungs and larynx. (And for all they knew, they could have been.) Frank's snout scrunched up, exposing the tips of their fangs. " _Yessss pe–pe–pea-pease._ " They let out a low moan that shook the house, the sound directed more at themself and their perceived failing, and Cliff finally put his hands down to rest on their bottom jaw. 

"You can't talk good like this, can you?" He asked quietly. 

" _Nooo._ " They said. 

Larry took the plunge and let himself stroke their cheek, and they closed their eyes and let out a puff of breath, pushing into the touch. Of course. Despite only spending not even a month with them, he had already gathered that they were very much of the touchy-feely sort. Touch would help them. He scooted closer to them, and stroked from their jaw down to their neck. He could barely feel the texture of their scales from under the bandages, but he gathered that they were smooth and ranged from large and flat to small and pebbled, and never once did they catch on any frays on the edges of his bandages. When he looked up, he saw that Cliff was gently scratching them at the base of their skull and under their jaw. "I bet that feels good, huh?" He asked, and Frank hummed, the noise rumbling through the both of them. 

It took them both ten minutes to calm them down enough that they changed back into the familiar skinny, five foot six menace they usually looked like. Cliff had talked to them the entire time, filling up the silence that stretched between them, mostly about his daughter. Some of it Larry had heard before, some of it he hadn't. At some point Cliff had begun singing lowly, after explaining that the song had always been able to calm Clara down after a nightmare. (The song had turned out to be Stairway to Heaven. Frank didn't mind.) He wasn't all that bad at it, even with the hollow, metallic undertone to his voice. 

If asked, and they were, afterwards, neither of them could describe exactly what the transformation had looked like. The only thing they could say about it was that it looked like Frank had been folding into themself, limbs dragged towards the center of their chest. But the manor finally sagged onto itself with something almost akin to relief, if manors could feel such a thing. 

No one asked Frank what it was really like. 

Half of it was out of courtesy, and the other half because they had been pale as a sheet as they sat there, in their somehow unruined clothes, in the midst of the destruction they had unintentionally caused. Cliff draped his coat over their shoulders as they shivered, eyes wide and darting everywhere, and they white knuckled it so hard the leather creaked as they pulled it closer around them. Swallowing thickly, they began to speak. 

"We are all going forward," they said, "None of us are going back. We are all going forward. None of us are going back. We are all going forward. None of us are going back." 

They continued like that for a minute that crept by like molasses, rocking back and forth as they did so. "We are all going forward. None of us are going back," they said one more time, and they stopped rocking. They looked around them, finally taking in the scale of the destruction–the crush furniture, the blown out window, the claw marks in the floor, the abrasions on the walls where their scales had dug into the drywall–and then looked back at Larry and Cliff. "Fuck," they said. 

"Yeah," Cliff said with a chuckle that sounded only a bit forced. "That about sums it up." And then he offered them a hand up. They took it, and when they stumbled into him and didn't pull away for long enough that it technically counted as hug, Larry averted his eyes (not that they'd be able to notice the gesture, what with the dark goggles wrapped around his eyes). 

"What did she look like?" Jane asked Cliff after (obviously back to fronting, now that it was apparent there was no need for Hammerhead), when they had exited the living room and he'd put Frank down, having to carry them over the splinters because they'd been wearing only their socks when they'd lost control. And then they'd told Niles, in a remarkably cold tone for a fifteen-year-old, "Don't," and disappeared up the stairs to slam the door to their room.

"I . . ." he stopped. "That's weird. I don't remember." 

She raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Yeah, I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that."

"No, seriously," he protested, "it's like . . . when I was looking at her, I knew what she looked like, but as soon as I looked away the details got all fuzzy-like." 

Jane rolled her eyes. "Figures," she snorted, and then walked off to . . . somewhere. Somewhere she wouldn't be bothered by the other dick for brains living in the manor. 

"Larry?" Rita asked, taking him aside further down the hall. "Are you alright? What happened." 

He shook his head. "I'll tell you later," he promised, already trudging up the stairs to go to his room. He needed a nap. 

Rita stood there for a moment longer, alone in the hallway, before huffing to herself and following Larry's path up the stairs to her own room. 

After that, Frank became less shy about their transformations, even if they remained just partial for the most part–an eye here, extra teeth there. They'd stumble down for breakfast with half their face swallowed by a mess of teeth and eyes and take their place with everyone else, and no one minded. Or they'd wear a short sleeve shirt while out gardening with Larry, and he would watch as they closed their eyes and focused, and one of their arms would turn into something resembling the limbs he knew he saw weeks ago but couldn't remember all that well. "Good for digging up weeds and flowerbeds," they said with a grin, laughing. 

* * *

 

iii. part three—dog days are over

 

Another month passed during Frank's stay, June slouching into July. They celebrated the fourth of July when it came, and if they made a bigger deal of it than usual because of their Canadian guest, then that was their collective little secret. They ate hot dogs on the patio out back and set off the fireworks Niles had bought while in town. Frank had begged for Cliff to set one off while they held it, and, to nobody's surprise, he bowed to their puppy eyes (the more eyes you had, the effective it became). They had also confiscated the lighter from him halfway through so that they could have a chance to light the fuses. Rita accused them of just liking setting things on fire, and they just grinned back at her toothily. 

Currently, Niles had Frank learning to utilize their more monstrous form, going through rigorous speech therapy (they'd always talk with a lisp, drawing out their ess sounds, but they could form sentences now, and pronounce the L's in words) and translating over their fine motor skills. Which meant learning how to walk. 

They all gathered outside on the back porch to watch as Frank learned to walk, sitting in the shade of the manor, Rita taking sips of a sangria while Larry–having carefully poked the straw through a small gap between his bandages–and Jane enjoyed some of her homemade lemonade. Frank was trying to get their too many legs under their body. 

When they finally succeeded in doing so they stood there proudly, head held high above the ground and the sun sparkling off their onyx scales. Well, as proud as they could look anyways, with a mug like their's. A mouth full of bristling fangs and a head covered in multitudes of eyes didn't make for that much of an expressive face. (They found themself relying much more on body language to convey meanings, whenever they were like this.) "Good!" Niles praised. "Very good!" He then started to back up his chair on the grass. "Now, follow me, slowly." They took one lumbering step forwards with their forelegs, all of their legs on their right side (and a few smack dab in the middle of their body) reaching out and following suit at once, and then they took another. On the third step, their legs got tangled together and they came toppling to the ground, crashing down chin first. In the background, they all winced, even as they snatched their drinks off the picnic table so they wouldn't fall over at the resulting tremors. 

Frank let out a loud, frustrated groan, and rose back to their feet. 

"Do you think Frank'll crush him?" Jane asked, sipping her lemonade. She was taking up an entire side of the picnic table all by herself, feet propped up on the other end. Rita clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth reproachfully. "Don't  _say_ things like that," she chided, scowling, even as Cliff came to their defense. "Aw, come one," he said, leaning on one of the concrete posts. "Have some faith in the kid. She can do it." 

And they did do it. Eventually. So they sat and watched, and Frank stumbled around on the grass like a baby bird. Or maybe a kitten. 

August came around soon enough, the weeks blowing by like the wind, and Frank elected to get enrolled in the high school in Cloverton. 

"Are you sure?" Niles asked over dinner. "You can always be tutored here, at the manor. There's no shame in it." 

Frank shook their head, swallowing their spaghetti–made with butter and olive oil, because tomato sauce hurt their mouth. "I wanna go," they said. "Not because I'm ashamed of being home schooled or anything like that, it's just–" they paused. "Okay, at the risk of sounding like a fucking nerd, it's because I like it." 

"You like high school?" Cliff asked, incredulous. 

They shrugged, twirling another bite of spaghetti on their fork. "It's not that I'm like, trying to be normal or some shit, because it's not that deep I swear. I just like the classes. I know it'll be different than the stuff I did in Canada, but I'll be fine."

"I guess it's decided then," Niles said. "We can drop by Jefferson High tomorrow, if you'd like." 

"Fuck yeah!" They cheered, arms shooting up into the air. 

When August eighth came, and Frank disappeared down the driveway to take the bus to their first day of grade eleven, no of them cried, but, with the exception Jane, who'd left again for however long, they didn't know what to do with themselves for the six hours without the hyperactive teenager whose presence they'd grown so used to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out everyone who's had to put up with me yelling about my doom patrol self-insert for literal weeks before i got off my ass and actually wrote this lol. anyways. This Character Is Literally Me.


	2. when a door is not a door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the town, jane, and chief have been swallowed by a giant hole, and frank is coping. or not. also, there's a donkey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hated writing donkey vore. poetry used in this chapter is an excerpt from 'resurrection' by vladmir holan. 
> 
> [warnings: emeto, body horror, brief allusions to sexual assault, canon-typical donkey vore :/]

Frank woke up in someone's arms, which wasn't right, and also alarming to their sleep-soaked mind. They choked back the instinct to shove themself away from the solid, unyielding chest their head was resting against, to struggle out of whatever it was wrapped around them they supposed was meant to be acting as a blanket. Eyes closed, they remained limp as a ragdoll, relaxing into the hold and the slight swaying, rocking motions that accompanied the movements of whoever was carrying them. They thought back to the last thing they remembered, where they  _ should  _ have been–standing in the middle of Main Street with their fist   
  
_ (and speaking of. they clench that fist, where its curled against their chest, and find only blunt–human–nails pressing marks into their palm, and breathe an uneasy sigh of relief.) _ _   
_   
buried in the asphalt as a vicious, supernatural wind tore at their hair and whipped their flannel around them on its way to the hole greedily sucking down the rest of the town, population included. Then–pain. Bright, sudden, jarring pain, flaring up at the back of their head in a starburst of agony. (Pain that they still felt, though considerably dulled, a muted ache having diffused itself from the back of their skull down to their jaw and up their temples, which throbbed in time with the beat of their heart.) And a taste like battery acid flooding their mouth, sharp and acrid. Right. They'd been hit in the head. That would explain it. Everything after that was dark, more a collection of vague impressions and snatches of conversations than an actual memory, as if their brain was a river that had been disturbed so the silt would come swirling to the surface and cloud the waters. But they languished in the hold of Cliff, because now that they were slightly more cognizant, they could recognize the texture of his leather jacket against their skin, the smell of machinery that had soaked into his shirt–pennies, and oil, and a little bit of old spice. Some part of them that they didn't like to acknowledge–the one that had things such as daddy issues–soaked up the vaguely paternalistic attention, while the rest of them desperately tried to beat back the growing attachment that was quickly heading to uncomfortable, father-figure related avenues. (But would that really be so bad? Asked the part of them that thought they deserved nice things. There were worse men to point to and whisper 'boogie woogie woogie' at under their breath.)   
  
Their internal struggle was cut off by a sudden wave of nausea, their stomach roiling as it spitefully tied their insides into queasy knots. Deep breaths. Take deep breaths through your nose and don't puke on your friend, Frank. It didn't matter if he was a robot and technically couldn't feel it, it was still disgusting. They let out a low moan. "Fuuuuck."   
  
"Guys–Frank's awake," Cliff's voice sounded from above them. They could feel him speak, hear it through the ear pressed to his chest, the humming and faint vibration of vocal synthesizers. He sounded strangely subdued, and sad. (And faintly, they were aware of Rita snippily saying that yes, she heard.) They opened their mouth to say something, anything, maybe to ask what the fuck happened, but a tell-tale lurch in their gut alerted them to a much more pressing problem. Frank started, jerking in his grip. When they moved their arms to push away from his chest and struggle against the jacket wrapped around them, it felt like they were trying to move through molasses, limbs too heavy and slow. "Hey, hey, it's just me, it's Cliff," he tried to say.   
  
They shook their head furiously, immediately regretting the action as their stomach clenched in warning and their head swam. "Put me–put me down I'm gonna hurl."   
  
"Oh, fuck, gross!" He shouted, and promptly almost dropped them on his way to the ground. Not that they minded, or noticed really, because they were already halfway to borderline leaping out of his arms anyways, using his chest as an impromptu springboard. The impact was absorbed by their knees, but it still ended up rattling up into their skull, aggravating their headache and sending fresh pulses of pain down spiking into their brain.   
  
They knelt on the side of the road, gravel digging into their knees and the heels of their palms, dry heaving and gagging on the nothing that came up.   
  
"See?" Rita said in the background. "I told you she was going to be unpleasant."   
  
"Rita, now is not the time, really," he shot back, and Frank groaned.   
  
"God, will you all please stop talkinggg."   
  
Cliff crouched beside them, a soothing hand rubbing circles into their back (he remembered, vaguely, his mother doing the same thing to him when he was eleven years old and had his head in the toilet), and let them lean their weight against his side when they sat back up, taking in a few shuddering breaths and coughing on spit. A few moments later, their coughing subsided, and they fished their arm out of the over sized sleeve of his jacket to wipe their mouth on their flannel. When they pushed his arm away from them to struggle to their feet on their own and take a few stumbling steps away from him, he pretended it didn't hurt.   
  
World tilting on its axis below their feet, Frank groaned and bent over, shoving their head between their knees as a wash of vertigo threatened to bring them back down again. They squeezed their eyes shut until flashes of colour burst across the inside of their eyelids, grinding the heels of their palms into the sockets for good measure. "You good?" Cliff called out from a few paces behind them, hands awkwardly hovering in the air like he wanted to reach out but thought better of it halfway through the action. They trust out an arm behind their back and sent him a thumbs up. Turning their head to the side, cheek resting on their knee, they spied Larry, Rita, and Cliff staring at them, the first two hanging back behind Cliff.   
  
"What the fuck are you looking at?" They asked, straightening up. Frank paused, observed the scene in front of them, and blinked. Two people were missing from the group in front of them, as well as a bus. "Actually, scratch that, better question: where the fuck is Jane and Chief?"   
  
Rita looked like she was about to waffle over something, and god knew what Larry's reaction was under all that gauze.   
  
"What do you remember?" She asked as they took a few experimental steps towards them, still unsure of their balance.    
  
"Jane, Chief, and the town got swallowed by that fucking hole," Cliff blurted out, and she whirled on him with a scandalized expression.   
  
"We said we were going to let her know  __ tactfully ," she accused. In the background, Larry let his head roll back so that he had an excellent view of the stars and was in no way showing exasperation at his teammates' well, everything.

“What the fuck?” They asked. “What the  _ fuck _ !” Frank’s hands flew up to grip their hair tightly, almost to the point of pain. “What do you fucking mean they got swallowed by the hole?” They looked around between them wildly, eyes wide. “We couldn’t stop it?” 

Everyone looked anywhere but at them. 

“The whole town?” They asked quietly.    
  
“I’m sorry,” said Larry, unsure of what he was apologising for. 

“God. Fuck. Whatever,” they said, drawing themself together. “It’s fine. It’s all fine. We’ll get Jane and the town and Chief back. It’s all good.” It definitely wasn’t, but they could keep it together long enough to sob in the shower about it like everyone else. They looked around again, finally cluing into their surroundings. "Where the fuck are we anyway?"

“About a twenty minute walk to the manor,” Larry offered helpfully, pointing down the road behind them, and they all–or, whatever was left of them–started off down that way again, this time with Frank in tow, stumbling along beside Cliff.

“So,” they started. “How long was I out for?” They asked. 

Cliff paused. “Uhhhh, about ten minutes?”

"Shouldn't have you like, taken me to a hospital or some shit?"   
  
"What hospital? The one in the fucking hole?"   
  
"Oh. Right."    
  
They walked along for another five minutes when Frank pulled their phone, miraculously intact (or maybe not so miraculously, considering they refused to buy Apple), out of the pockets of their jeans, and scrolled through their contacts before hovering their thumb over a name that began with an 'N'. They pressed in, and the name Nicole lit up on the screen above the picture of a smiling girl in a cheerleader's uniform. Cliff glanced down to check on them, and caught a glimpse at their screen before they brought the phone up to their ear.   
  
"Who's Nicole?" He asked, and Frank glanced at him, shifting uncomfortably.   
  
"Just a friend from school." They said curtly, and there was a faint click as he blinked.    
  
"You've got friends?" He asked, a failed attempt at lightening the mood. He knew that if their friend had been in town at the time–well. They glared at him from the corner of their eye. He raised his hands in surrender until they looked away, lips thinning into a white line. Any friends they might or might not have had were all missing–or worse. “Sorry,” he apologised.   
  
The phone kept ringing.    
  
"Hi! You've reached Nicole–"   
  
Oh thank  _ god _ .    
  
"–sorry I'm not picking up right now, but I'll call you back asap! Please leave your message after the beep."    
  
"Shit," Frank swore, thumbing over the red hang up icon in the bottom left corner. "Mother _ fuck _ !" Their eyes shone as they blinked back tears, and he didn't say anything about them, just placed a comforting hand on their shoulder. As he watched, the left side of their face bubbled as a collection of ever shifting eyes took over, and the skin of their cheek split apart to expose half of a mouth crowded with teeth that shouldn't have been able to fit. He didn't comment on that, either. Eventually, the changes subsided as they took deep breaths and murmured: “We shall one day be awakened by a terrifying clamour of trumpets,” under their breath. “We shall one day be awakened by a terrifying clamour of trumpets,” they said, hands tight on the sleeves of his jacket. “We shall one day be awakened by a terrifying clamour of trumpets.”    
  
"Do you want me to carry you?" Cliff asked when they stumbled over their feet in an attempt to pull away from him.    
  
"I'm fine," they said curtly, not even looking at him, eyes focused on the dark horizon somewhere down the road. Seconds later they glanced up at him a little guiltily, and cleared their throat. "Sorry. No thank you."    
  
A few minutes of silence, and then:   
  
"Can I have my jacket back?"    
  
They tugged his jacket tighter around themself.   
  
"No."   
  
They didn't say anything else until they reached they reached the manor. 

When the four of them arrived back home twenty minutes later, feet collectively sore and aching, tired in ways more than just physical, and each more than a little irritable, Frank sat on the mat and half-heartedly struggled with picking apart the laces of their boots before giving up and resorting to frustratedly tearing them off and kicked them into a corner. They head off in the direction of the staircase, and got up one step before Cliff noticed their actions.    
  
"Hey, where are you going?" Cliff asked. 

Frank stopped, and turned around. A tight, sarcastic smile full of fangs that–literally–split their cheeks decorated their face. Blood dripped down the corners of their lips, all the way down to their chin. They didn’t seem to notice it, or just didn’t care. "I'm going to pop a couple Advil because my head is killing me, and then I'm going to take a fucking nap," they said. The skin on the left side of their cheek drooped as it prepared to slide off and make way for more teeth. “Is that a problem?” Their voice came out as a rattling hiss. The banister under their hand groaned in protest as they white-knuckled it, wood threatening to splinter. They shrugged off his jacket, looking him in the eyes as they balled it up and threw it at him with all their drained, tired might. He caught it, and held onto it loosely. "Here's your fucking jacket," they said, turning on their heel.    
  
"Frank–" he said. They continued up the stairs, ignoring him. "Frank!" A door on the upper level was slammed closed. 

Beside him, Larry sighed. “Forget it, Cliff,” he said. “Just give her some space.”    
  
"So what, we aren't gonna make a plan to get the Chief and Jane back?" He demanded, looking at the two left. "Guys?" He asked again when neither answered, looking anywhere but at him. Larry just patted his shoulder and moved past him.    
  
"We can do that in the morning," Rita said, a bit stiffly. "When the sun is up and we’ve all had some sleep.” And then she was following in Frank and Larry’s footsteps up the stairs, to her room.    
  
He stood there in the empty foyer for a few more seconds, clutching the jacket in his hands and looking at it, before trudging up the stairs to his room. 

In their room, Frank was a miserable sprawl across their bed, facedown in the memory foam mattress. Limbs akimbo and in varying stages of transformation, they let their sheets soak up their tears and the blood dripping from their mouth. Sniffling, they gathered their arms under them and pushed themself up to roll over on their side. They curled up in a vague fetal position, a ball of slowly abating pain and slowly growing guilt.

Guilt was a lead-lined stomach, or acid eating away at their insides, or a foul taste at the back of their mouth. They felt bad about snapping at Cliff like that. He was in the same situation as them and everyone else. Sniffling, they let the tears fall, and didn’t bother in trying to wipe them away. 

They fell asleep like that, shaky breathes gradually evening out as the tiredness in their bones won out over their soft cries. 

When they woke up, their eyes were sticky and the sun was casting her warm light across their bedroom, wide sunbeams lighting up the otherwise dark room. They’d moved sometime during their sleep; they were on their back now. They realised they had fallen asleep with their phone in their hand when they moved their hands to wipe away the crust gathered in the corners of their eyes. After a brief hesitation, they grabbed their headphones from the bedside table and slid them on.

Lying back, they stared at the ceiling, headphones over their ears. They called Nicole again, not expecting a change 

_ (isn’t that the definition of insanity–doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?) _

on the other end of the line. They recorded her voicemail as it went on, and replayed it when it stopped. The recording played. It ended. They started it again. It played. It ended. They started it again. 

Hi! You've reached Nicole! Sorry I'm not picking up right now, but I'll call you back asap! Please leave your message after the beep.

A knock at their door brought them out of the trance they'd been lulled into, listening to her voice. "Frank! I'm going back into town. Wanna come with?" Cliff announced, still hammering on their door, rattling it on its hinges. They sniffed as discreetly as they could, and wiped at their face just in case anything had tracked down their cheeks.    
  
"Yeah, just gimme a sec," they called, fumbling with their headphones, pausing the recording and sliding them down around their neck. They hopped around their room, jumping into a clean pair of jeans and T-shirt (throwing the ones they’d ended up sleeping in onto the ever growing laundry pile in the corner of their room) and ditching the flannel for the leather jacket hanging in their closet. Still tugging an arm through a sleeve, they opened the door on Cliff, who was awkwardly standing in the hall. If he noticed that their eyes were a little bit red-rimmed, he wisely kept it to himself. “Come on,” they said, a little breathlessly, “let’s get going.” 

The town was eerily still. The silence was draped over the rubble-strewn wasteland like a smothering blanket, pressing in uncomfortably close when Frank killed the truck’s engine. Even the crunch of gravel under theirs and Cliff’s boots felt like they were disturbing something. But of course they were; 8562 people had died there last night. They were standing on the unmarked grave of every Cloverton resident. A shudder ran up their spine. Steeling themself, they slammed the door shut and turned to face Cliff as he hopped out of the truck bed. “So,” they started, hands deep in the pockets of their jeans. They looked around, spinning in a slow circle. “Where do we start?” 

Cliff paused. Frank could almost see the gears in his head spinning as he thought. “We should probably try to find that fucking donkey,” he said, looking over the-patch-of-land-that-used-to-be-Cloverton. “Let’s start with that for now. I’ll take that side–” he pointed to the left, “–and you take that one. Just, holler if you find anything.” He looked back to them. “Sound good?” He asked. 

They shrugged. “Sounds like a solid plan to me,” they said. “Meet back here at noon-ish?” 

He nodded, and then they went their separate ways. 

Frank wandered down what remained of Main Street, glass and other debris breaking under their feet, and counting the intersections. One, two, three, four–they went on. The street signs had been swallowed too, forcing them to rely on their memory of the street locations. They turned left at the sixth intersection, and went down another street. They counted those streets too, until they reached the third, and turned right, and then began counting the exposed, crumbling foundations of what was left of the neighbourhood. One, two, three, four, five–

They stopped at the eighth house down. 

Nicole’s house. 

There was nothing of it left standing, just pieces of concrete sticking out of the ground in a haphazard square–not that they had been expecting anything else, but they just had to see it with their own eyes. 

Standing there, it made them want to try something. Frank took a deep breath and closed their eyes. They focused on nothing but their breathing. In, and out, in, and out. They went to the dark place at the back of their mind, and sifted through it, looking for something suitable. 

_ “Hey, *********, want me to teach you some stretches?” Anxiety/hands/hands-on-their-body/I-can-trust-him-can’t-I?  _

Their skin bubbled. Scales grew in the place of the hair on their arms and legs. Eyes blinked open all across their body. Their arm lengthened and swelled as their hand widened and fingernails were pushed out by thick claws. Half of their body listed to one side as their center of gravity was upset. Sharp teeth crowded their mouth, pressing into their tongue. For a moment, an elated feeling swooped in, pushing away the anxiety that filled their stomach, before everything came to a shuddering halt. The transformation stopped. They held onto it for a minute, trying to push it forward, to go all the way and finish it, before they released it with a gasp, stumbling to the side. Sweat dripped down their face as they gasped for breath. “Shit,” they breathed out. “Shit!” They kicked a rock and sent it flying down the street. 

They stopped. “Frank? Frank!”

Distantly, Cliff called for them. With a sigh, they wiped the sweat off their brow with a sleeve, and pinched their cheeks to try to regain some of the colour that had drained out of them.

When they arrived a few minutes later, Cliff was arguing with a young guy dressed in an adidas tracksuit, who was holding the leash of the donkey. That  _ fucking  _ donkey. “Oh, you found that fucking thing,” they said. 

“Frank, tell this guy that–” he stopped mid-sentence as he took in the pale, sweatiness of their visage, and the subtle shaking of their hands and knees they tried to hide. “What the fuck happened to you?” He asked. 

“I tried to–” they shot a furtive glance to the stranger standing off to their right, “–you know . . .” they trailed off, staring at the new guy. Half of his face was made of metal, with a glowing red eye. He seemed familiar. A name hovered on the tip of their tongue.

“Oh. How’d it go?”

“Fuck do you think?” They asked a bit waspishly, pride still stinging, as they turned to face him.

“Hey, whoa, okay,” the stranger spoke, raising his hands in a placating ‘calm down’ gesture. “There’s no need for that.”

“No it’s fine, that’s just how she talks,” Cliff said just as Frank whirled around and yelled, “CYBORG?!” 

“Holy shit,” they said. “You’re like, an actual hero. What the fuck are you out here in the boonies? Aren’t you like, a Justice League prospect?” 

He gave them a shy smile. “You can call me Vic, but yeah. Care to explain what the hell happened here? Because your friend here said that a hole swallowed everything and then swallowed itself.”

“Oh. Yeah. That actually happened. I got knocked out almost right after it opened through so I sorta . . . missed everything.”

“You’ve got to be kidding–” he started, but then the donkey began to yack. It made a disgusting noise, and then its mouth opened farther than a donkey’s mouth should have been able to open. Jane came tumbling out, head over heels and covered in a vile smelling slime. 

“I take it that’s Jane?” Vic asked, rhetorically. 

“Oh my god,” Frank said. “Oh my  _ god _ .”

“Frank, get the truck,” said Cliff. 

“Yeah! Yep!” They replied with wide eyes, already breaking off into a run towards it. 

“We’ve got a live one!” Cliff shouted, following after Vic as he opened the door. Frank winced and shrank away involuntarily, but their actions–thankfully–went unnoticed by the others. They’d gunned it down the back roads, breaking all sorts of speeding laws that would have gotten them thousands of dollars in tickets if any cops had been left to patrol the area. Rita and Larry were coming down the stairs, obviously having heard them when they came bursting in. 

“Jane?” Rita asked the limp form in Cliff’s arms. “What happened?”

“The donkey spit here out.”

“What?”

“ _ The donkey spit her out _ !” He repeated, brushing past them. 

“You know, when he says it twice like that, it really does sound crazy,” Vic noted. “Uh. Name’s Vic,” he said, as Larry and Rita stared at him. “Cyborg.” They looked at each other, and Frank watched them with amusement. “From Detroit?” 

“So you’re some sort of . . . big city hero,” she said. Something like cockiness filled his stance as he obligatorily demurred. 

“I wouldn’t say that.” 

“Heroes never do,” she replied, smirking, and laying it on thick. “See?” She told Larry beside her, holding her arm where the pink rubber glove ended. “No need to get involved.” She went back up the stairs. Larry gave a half-hearted salute before turning and following her. 

“God, you too are old,” Frank called after them. Vic turned to look at them after they spoke. “This thing might be all hands on deck whether you farts like it or not!” They swung themself around the banister in the direction of the hall Cliff had disappeared down with Jane. They were being petty, and vindictive, they thought as they entered the living room, but they couldn’t really find it within themselves to care. Which felt bad, felt wrong, because they should’ve, they should have cared, but all they felt was angry. Not even at Rita, or Larry. Just angry at some vague concept.

“Jane, I know you’ve been through a lot, but I really need to know what happened to Chief. Jane” Cliff was speaking slowly, as Jane had some sort of breakdown. She rocked and banged her fists against her thighs, drawing in quick, shallow breaths. 

“Jane isn’t here right now,” a different voice spoke, sounding as if it had been sent through an autotuner and double back onto itself. Whoever was fronting–Frank was pretty sure it was Sylvia, because she was the one who had the spooky voice, right?–buried her face in her knees as she twisted her arms together, and began repeating something completely unintelligible to their ears. Sylvia (?) looked up and continued repeating herself, tone growing more forceful each time she said the words. 

“Is she saying Niles is dead?” Vic asked as he walked in. 

“Jane. Did you. See. The Chief?”

“That’s not Jane,” Frank said, but no one was listening. 

“Jane?”

They stopped repeating their frantic words, and brushed their bangs of out their face. Their face twisted into a sneer. “You don’t care about the Chief,” Hammerhead, voice barbed and sharp. “You just want to blame him for keeping you away from the daughter you  _ fucked _ up,” they moved up onto the couch. 

“What is she talking about?” 

“Shut up!” Both Frank and Cliff said. They paused, and looked at each other for a moment before their attention was turned back to the couch as someone else fronted, and began to scream. She tangled her fingers in her hair before beginning to beat on her head and slam herself into the couch cushions. 

“Oh, shit!” Frank took a stumbling backwards, startled by the screaming, and the self-harm. 

“Jane, stop that!” Cliff rushed forward, and tried to restrain her. “Stop! Stop, stop, stop! Stop!” 

“Don’t you FUCKING touch me!” 

He backed off, just as another alter fronted. “Oh,” she gasped. “Please touch me.” She spread her legs and ran her hands up and down her body. “Please, touch me.”

“Oh! Okay! I’m out!” Frank chirped out, thoroughly uncomfortable. They scrambled out past Vic, and he looked after them concernedly for a second, before looking back to the scene unfolding in front of him. 

Frank walked of the room, and didn’t stop until they reached the front door, and went outside to sit on the front steps. The donkey was chewing the grass on the law, tied to a post.  Anxiously, they bounced their leg unceasingly, their whole being jittery and thrumming with nerves as they waited for the butterflies in their stomach to settle. That had been . . . uncomfortable. In more ways than one. Minutes passed, dragging by slowly, and they filled the time alternating between scrolling through Tumblr and twisting their hands in their lap. Just as they cracked their knuckles, one by one, a woman began to scream in the manor. They flinched as the screech shattered the calm they’d lulled themself into. “What the fuck?” They asked themself quietly, just as they heard Hammerhead shouting something indecipherable and the sound of stuff breaking. The door opened then, and Larry, along with Rita, walked out. Larry was holding a box of Jenga bricks. 

“The fuck’s going on in there?” They asked them, standing and discarding their phone into their pocket. Neither of them winced at their language, having long grown used to the casual vulgarity seemingly everyone in the manor dropped on the regular. 

“Do you really wanna know?” Larry asked. They paused, and decided that no, they actually didn’t, and shook their head. “Want to play Jenga with us until everything calms down?” 

“ _ Please _ ,” they said, sincerely. The yelling, and the breaking, was making them nervous, even if they didn’t want to show, or admit it to anyone–even themself. Once they all sat down, Frank dumped all the wooden blocks onto the picnic table and began to carefully set up the tower, stacking them up in alternating rows of three. 

They played in silence, mostly, with the occasional reminder for someone to take their turn or quiet exclamations as the tower came tumbling down all over the laps. It continued like that for two games before Frank, chewing on their bottom lip and on the inside of their cheek, bit the bullet they’d anxiously been staring down the barrel at. “Sorry,” they said quietly, during their turn, not looking at them as they carefully tapped blocks to see which would slide out easiest. “For, you know. Calling you old. And farts.” Their face felt heated with shame and embarrassment. God, they hated apologies 

_ (no, just the awkwardness of the words on their tongue. “i'm sorry,” sticking to the inside of their throat like honey, choking on the words as if they’re something bitter. i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry.)  _

and the guilted feeling they brought with them. They selected a block, pulled it free, and placed it on top. “That wasn’t cool of me. If you guys wanna stay out of this, then you can do that. I shouldn’t judge.” 

“I . . . “ Larry started. “Thank you, Frank.” They shrugged, and did their best to retreat into their flannel. (They never used to do that before, Larry had noticed a couple months ago, until a few months after they’d arrived at the manor. The self-centered part of him wanted to believe they had adopted that habit from him.) 

Rita pursed her lips, and withdrew her own block. “Yes . . . thank you, Frank.”

“I can’t get it out of my head, though,” he said. “I mean, how does Jane go into a hole in the ground and come out of a donkey?”

“The man raises a good point,” Frank said as she sighed. 

“God, please don’t get us involved,” she asked of him, almost pleadingly. “I thought we were on the same page here–we’re the ones who  _ don’t  _ do anything.” 

“But Rita,” he countered. “What if–what if the donkey is a door.” 

“That’s what I was wondering,” Vic said, exiting the house. They all turned to face him. “Hmm. My scans say it’s a perfectly normal donkey.”

“Thank god that’s solved,” Rita said sarcastically, rising from the picnic table and walking away. “Mint juleps, anyone?” She made to go back into the manor now that everything had seemingly calmed down. 

“Mint’s gross,” said Frank, but no one payed attention. They guessed the Jenga game was over, and began to dejectedly clean up the blocks and stack them back into the box. “Tastes like ass,” they continued. 

Vic approached the donkey, kneeling down to get on eye level with it. Frank cringed. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” 

“Somebody’s gotta step out the science of this for me,” he gripped its chin with a hand, examining the features of its face. 

“Science?” Larry scoffed. “What science? Here: dimensions. Wormholes. Other buzzwords from the two theoretical physics textbooks I read in the fifties.” 

Rita had stopped on her way to the manor, and turned. “Not that I care, but can’t that thing inside you tear a hole into another dimension?” 

He sighed, the sound both agitated and tired. He didn’t like talking about the spirit. “How should I know? It’s a being of pure energy. Even if  _ it  _ knows something about the other dimensions,  _ I _ don’t. And we don’t communicate.”

“Well maybe that’s the problem,” Frank spoke up, tired of being ignored. They’d cleaned up the Jenga blocks while the adults–well. Two adults and one almost-adult–argued amongst themselves on the science of a donkey that farted words and spat up a person, and was now sitting on the grass, legs outstretched in front of them. 

“What is?” 

They gave him a look. “That you two don’t communicate. I mean, Jesus man, it’s been what–fifty, sixty years? And you haven’t figured  _ something _ out yet? Think of all the stuff you could talk about! The things you could  _ learn  _ from each other!” 

He didn’t want to admit they had a point. “This isn’t about me,” he said a bit waspishly, falling onto the defensive. “This is about the donkey.”

An inscrutable expression crossed their face before it was gone as soon as it had appeared, becoming closed-off as they rolled their eyes and muttered something that was most likely vulgar and insulting under their breath. 

“Holy crap.” Vic’s voice drew them all back into the problem at hand. 

“What is it?” Rita asked, apprehensively. 

“This thing’s throat is a keyhole!” He turned to face them as the donkey snorted. “The donkey  _ is  _ a door.” Larry pointed at him, still kneeling on the ground with the donkey’s chin in his grasp, as if to say, ‘you see?’

“Ugh, god. To what?” Her face pulled into a disgusted grimace and put her hands on her hips. 

Vic rose excitedly. “Wherever Jane went? Where the Chief still is? Where an entire town is still trapped.”

“ _ Or _ , it’s a perfectly normal donkey,” she argued, but she didn’t sound so sure of herself. 

“Okay, so let’s take a look inside.” His suggestion caused Frank’s eyebrows to rise, and they leaned forward, suddenly a lot more interested in the conversation. “I can’t get it there,” he continued. Oh, this  _ would  _ be good, they decided, as he and Larry turned to her. 

“Oh, no.  _ No _ ,” she shook her head. “Under no circumstances,” she said firmly. 

“Rita, I’ve seen what you can do with your body,” he pleaded. 

“No, you've seen what happens to my body when it gets stressed out. And do you know what's stressing me out right now? The idea of shoving my face down the slimy throat of a diseased animal.” Face contorted into an expression of righteous fury, she ranted on, hands moving around agitatedly as her voice grew shrill. “Is this funny to you? Does my humiliation get your blood pumping? I'd like to know what you're picturing right now. Are you going to shove me in a sack, hmm? A trash bag? Cut a little hole so you can squeeze me into that syphilitic beast like a tube of toothpaste? Push my eye into a funnel and force me into the bowels of a braying shit-factory without my consent?” When she finished, breathing heavily, Vic blinked, and asked:

“Would that work?” 

Her expression was thunderous. “I am a Golden Globe nominee!” She exclaimed, and turned on her heel, furiously storming back into the manor. 

“Jesus Christ,” Frank swore. “I can do it,” they volunteered, rising to their feet and dusting the grass clippings from their knees. 

“Absolutely not,” Larry protested. They raised their eyebrows again, and blinked. 

“And why not? If this is some bullshit about my age or something, I really would like you to take that up with me when I’m–”

“No,” he said, “it’s because yesterday you got knocked out by a stop sign, and you’re in no shape to go spelunking down the throat of a donkey.” 

“Hold on, hold on, Time out,” Vic interrupted, using his hands to make a ‘T’. “You got knocked out last night?” 

They shrugged. “Yeah?” 

He paused as Grid ran a scan over them. “Nothing appears to be wrong with her, Vic,” it told him. 

“My scanner says you’re fine,” he said, and they looked at Larry triumphantly. “But I’m not so sure if I want to send you down that thing’s throat yet.” Their shoulders slumped and they groaned, falling back onto the grass. 

So the donkey was a door and had a keyhole in its mouth, and they had no way to access the doorway that lay inside of it. After a few minutes, Frank sat up in the grass, propping themself up on their elbows. “Hey, Larry?” They asked, a small grin plastered on their face. Shit-eating, mischievous–Larry wondered what they were about to pull as both he and Vic turned to look at them. “When is a door not a door?” Vic’s face screwed up in confusion even as Larry paused to contemplate the question. A riddle, then. 

“What the hell is that supposed to–”

“When it’s ajar,” he answered. “A door is not a door when it’s ajar.” He looked over at the donkey tied to the post. “Or when it’s a donkey, I guess.” 

It was at that moment that Rita came storming back outside, a garbage bag and funnel in hand. She looked upset, but that was probably because someone –herself, maybe, or Cliff–had managed to convince her to go down the throat of a donkey. Frank supposed they’d be mad about that too if Vic had told them to do it, and they hadn’t volunteered. 

As Larry spread out the trash bag, she paced back and forth, stretching out her hand and bringing it back to her chest as she repeated, “Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot. Whether the weather be cold, or whether the weather be hot.”

“What is she  _ doing _ ?” Vic asked.

Larry sighed. “I don’t know. Rita needs to emote in order to blob.” 

Frank got it. They did the same thing when they came out of a transformation or was trying to stall one, except with poetry fragments. 

“Let’s set some ground rules,” she said, finished repeating whatever it was she had been saying. “One, during this entire ordeal, nobody is allowed to look at me. Two, when I am in the bag, you will only squeeze me as I ask to be squeezed. Three, when I see whatever is in this disgusting keyhole, you will immediately pull me out and we will never speak of this again.” 

Vic drew his fingers across his lips. “Code of silence.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” said Frank. 

Larry nodded. 

Frank held true, and didn’t look at her as she funneled herself into the bag and down the donkey’s throat, but that didn’t stop them from hearing the squelching noises that came with it. Their stomach churned. 

“Ew. Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew,” said Rita, speaking for all of them, her voice tinny and muffled by layers of, ugh, donkey flesh. “Oh, ew. Oh, God. It's slimy, it stinks.” 

“Just fyi, if I vomit, I have no choice but to choke on it,” Larry said. 

“Sucks to be you then,” Frank replied, giving in to the desire to put their hands over their ears. They didn’t catch what Rita said next, or whatever came after that too, but they definitely noticed the cries of alarm coming from Vic and Larry. 

“Rita! Rita!” They whirled around to catch as Vic dropped the now empty garbage bag and gripped the donkey by its jowls. It opened its mouth, and sucked in his arm. He braced himself against the grass, and both Larry and Frank scrambled to pull him back, but the donkey wouldn’t relent. “Oh, no,” Vic said. 

“What?” Asked Larry, a bit frantically. 

“We’re going in!” And they did so, Frank losing their grip on them as the donkey’s mouth opened wider and they slid down it’s throat. 

“Shit! Shit! Holy fucking shit!” They said to themself, breath coming in too quickly. They paced the lawn in front of the donkey, eyes wide and hands shaking. “What the fuck!” They whirled around on the offending creature, fists clenching and unclenching. They thought of their friends, and the town. They thought of Nicole. Their eyes narrowed, and they stalked forward. Yanking its jaws open, they stared down into the back of its throat at felt  _ something  _ tug at their arm. 

“Give me my friends back you son of a bitch,” they snarled, and then they were falling.   
  



End file.
